Sunday, July 22, 2012

This bike is sweet.
There has been much dialogue on the WWW concerning whether you are basically a poor or boring builder based on if you are open to strange or non mainstream bikes. For me it's not appearance that I sell - it's fit. Appearance is secondary, and i believe form follows function, and if it's built correctly to function, then beauty is naturally achieved, like a fine blade, a wild trout, a sea kayak, or a custom bicycle.
I built my reputation not through making people look, but by hopefully helping them see - to see what performance and comfort I can provide from 23 years of professionally working on bikes, touring all over the world by bike, over 20 years of racing from short track to 100 mile to 12 hour to 24 hour events, and on top of it a solid fabrication background. This is what I sell, and I think what is pictured here is the quintessential Coconino Cycle.

Flow. Plus, hand-cast lost wax bronze headbadge from BDL.

Grace through function - Deus ex Machina.

All filed & polished "Signature" frames are taken to this level of finish work in the following pictures - white hides nothing, and there is nothing to hide - no bondo or filler, just metal and honest labour.

Bolted to the table for frame prep - facing & chasing all the threads, ect.

Blogger is loading pictures in a random manner, which it sometimes does, and because of this I'm doing two posts today for you fine folks, all five of you - thanks for reading!
Here is an awesome picture I took at 75mph returning from a 36 hour fishing/camping trip - man, we made the holeshot on this one. I have never seen a storm like this, and the next day there were tornado warnings right where I took this and i think this one was on the verge of rotation.

Those dark cloud fragments were dancing around and appearing and disappearing rapidly - scary!

Just out there marching across the desert........

Gullo came over & helped me curve tubes, two different wall thicknesses & varying radii for different builds - the very acute radii one will go to Rock Lobster Cycles to build step-through bicycles - cool.

I got this super cool Milagrosa del Pato from Ted - I love these shrines he makes.

Gelle's frame mod to disc is finally done, I can do frame mods to bikes I have built, but it may take some time. Usually a good amount of it, they have to fit in the cracks between frames & bikes.

A couple pictures on the way to the put-in - not promising looking..........

Church rock below - there must be 1000's of "church rocks" in the four corners.

We took our "little" boats - only 14' - up since we were only doing an overnighter.

Fishing was pretty good! not off the charts, but plenty good.

D. paddling upstream.

The interplay of light and shadow was fascinating.

A nice fatty for dinner - delicious.

The clouds are pink because they reflect the red from the surrounding desert, which is largely composed of red and pink hues. I love this effect, it tells me I am home.

Not bad, but storms were literally on the horizon - shit hit the fan not long after this, and some great effects below..

I also got in my 1st ride in over 2.5 months - it beat me down but good.
It looks like we travel far & wide, but usually all my pictures are within a 2 hour radius from our house.

The Bracken were resplendent regardless of the weak moisture this summer.

Often I do not even use trails. They don't always go where I want to go.........

But, sometimes they do.

These orange guys are all about the thistle.

Bristlecone pine.

We actually saw a few Segos - I thought for sure there would be zero of them this year - we saw maybe five, instead of thousands like last year.

Above - grease your seatpost!!!! This one fused due to being un-lubed - I wish I had gotten it before removal was attempted, as when I got it it was 1" down the seat tube, and I had to bore it out to what you see below, and then I had to painstakingly remove the rest chip by chip - there is still some down in there, but it will hold a post just fine, I could have likely gotten it all out had there not been over 8" of post stuck in it. I likely could have gotten out more, but the ID of the post was oval and I could not get a tapered reamer into it - a Ritchey - Folks, you only need 4-5" of seat post in your bike.

Fugly, huh?

Above, seat stay detail.

And here, seat stays ready for mitering. The bike below is destined to live here as a "guest bike"

Sunday, July 08, 2012

Long time no post, so much to do in the shop - I've had four full days off since June 1st and have not been biking in going on two months - payback for Baja and the Grand Canyon - well worth it!
Here, Ted came over to assemble his new Coconino frame & fork from his old Surly, which fit awful.
Ted has an odd fit - long torso, short arms and legs. A utilitarian commuter/dirt roadster that will fit at least 45c's.

Above, Dave B's frame getting scrutinized pre seat stays.

And, all tacked up & ready to be brazed - a 650B built around a Fox 80mm x 29er fork.
A full build coming up with Paul hubs, Stan's rims, White Industries freewheel - good stuff, one speed.

I put down the torch and snapped the pic. Hot, damn hot.

Out of the dunktank and cleaned off - a full signature frame to be fully polished. It's actually done and I need to do braze-ons today but I only have time right now to do my blog.
I am rapidly catching up on metal work but do you ever really catch up?

Below, alignment check post brazing. Damn, this frame came out spot-on, and I mean spot-on. <.25mm out over the entire span of the frame with most of it being well under that.

This pic shows me checking to make sure the faces are in phase with each other, which they are.

Wheel check, 650B x 2.35"

Tight brazing.

Above, "The Woodsman's" 26" fully rigid MTB to go live in Sussex, England.
Giddy-up.
Below, collecting parts for the same.

We did a whiz-bang trip to the Rio to get a few dust-free days off (super drought conditions - too dusty to handcycle and breathe/see) so we took off for 36 hours for an overnighter.

D. is no slouch catching trout.

Bro-in-law Greg's first time kayaking - he did great & had a blast.

Greg fishing in sub 50*F water while I rack out for awhile - the ranger station recorded over 112*F both days - love it. Good for the bones & joints.

I measure trout by the paddle blade.

Little boat, big canyon.

Horses are walking over 1000 vertical feet down from the Rez to drink - some branded, some not.
We also saw a 3/4 curl bighorn ram where I had never seen one before. The critters that have made it down to the Rio are fat & happy. Had a 4' long beaver rip right under the boats at speed, looked just like a seal.

Greg & D.

Giant Desert Centipede tracks - very poisonous, aggressive, bad news.

It gets no better then shade:30 after a long sunny day.

The end of a great day - 36 hours hit it & get it.
Super busy, some orders are waiting for special things like custom tubes or 44mm head tube facers, but the immediate up and coming orders are : Woodsman - up now, then: Barin - I know you are stuck in visa/immigration hell, let me know when you think you can take delivery - Dave B, Bill S, Eiji, Jason C, John L, ect out to April, 2013.Thanks for reading, all three of you - Steve.

SO, WHAT'S THIS ALL ABOUT, THEN?

Hi! my name is Steve Garro, and this blog is an ongoing chronical of the process of building the finest handmade bicycles I can here at Coconino Cycles, located in beautiful Flagstaff, Arizona.

I'm a one man operation, doing all the design and fabrication in house with my own hands. we have been operating full time since feburary 2003, producing about 20-25 frames a year, as well as handbuilt wheelsets and complete bike builds. every bike is totally custom fit to the needs and measurements of each rider and built from scratch with hand selected tubesets from several premium manufactuers including True Temper, Dedacciai and Kaisei. I pride myself on perfect fit, ride quality, and durability to provide you with the best cycling experence I can. to know more details, check out my web page, http://www.coconinocycles.com/

Please note that as of 1/14 I had a roughly one amd a half year backlog on orders. I have since stopped taking deposits to catch up on work until January 2015

When looking through my blog, you will also see alot of details of my life and pictures of things I like to do and stuff that I think is cool, like handcycling, fishing, boating, friends and family, critters, landscape, and flowers, with some wierd stuff thrown in for good measure. enjoy, and thanks for stopping by - Steve